Attack of the Shadow Armor
Levi couldn’t help but to cheer as Lucian and Morgan, alongside another four he didn’t recognize, rushed into the plaza. He had been hoping they’d made their way here, but having confirmation that they were alive, much less well enough to be fighting was something he found worth celebrating, even if now wasn’t the moment for it. He almost absentmindedly threw his keyblade at a particularly uppity shadow who thought now was a good time to rush him, smiling as the keyblade flew right back to his hand.
“Am I glad to see you!” He called to both groups, before redirecting his focus towards keeping the heartless back.
Lucian grinned at the sound of Levi’s voice.
“You too!” he called back, slicing through another Heartless that lunged his way.
“A lot has happened. Nice throw, by the way!”As the group assembled the shadows surrounding them inched closer. Before the battle could continue, pillars of stone erupted from the cobblestone floors in front of each of the exits, keeping them trapped inside with the enemy Heartless.
Max was visibly confused. He didn't know the Heartless had this kind of ability. Even if they wanted to run they couldn't. He turned to Morgan and then his dad. He had to protect them. He pulled his skateboard off his back and threw it to the floor. He jumped on the front of the board, held out his lance, and kickstarted.
“Maxie!” Goofy yelled before hopping on the back of Max's skateboard and holding onto his collar.
“I got you, Maxie!” This almost caused them to fall, but Max regained his balance and kept pushing.
“Dad, what are you doing?” Max asked, almost irritated.
“Protecting my son. Just go, I got your back.” Goofy said with a focused look before doing a small one hundred and eighty degree turn to block any Heartless that might come their way.
Max nodded and continued to skate, skewering the shadows in their way while Goofy knocked aside Soldiers that tried to chase them.
Daisy walked over to Donald.
“Thinking what I'm thinking, honey?”“You betcha.” He said while lifting his staff, summoning a dark cloud above them.
“Thundaga!” Donald yelled as streaks of lightning fell from the cloud to strike down the Heartless immediately surrounding them.
Daisy aimed her staff the way she and the others came to the horde that chased them here. A blue light shone at the tip of her staff as she yelled,
“Blizzara!” Ice erupted from her staff killing some of the shadows, but temporarily freezing the others to give the group a bit of a reprieve.
Lucian gritted his teeth as the entire group was trapped inside stone pillars with a bunch of Heartless.
“Great. They’re trapping us now?” He muttered, looking around for a path—but there was none. They were surrounded.
Lucian’s eyes widened when Goofy and Max, followed afterwards by Daisy and Donald sprung into action.
“Ok, that was cool!” Lucian breathed, watching them clear a path through the crowd.
Lucian raised his Keyblade, calling on the magic he’d barely begun to understand.
“Let’s push them back while we have the opening! Blizzard!” He shot out ice nowhere near as powerful as what Daisy was doing. But it hit a group of Heartless, and that was good enough. He looked at the others.
“They’re not giving us a way out, so I guess we have to make one!”Morgan tapped her staff on the ground.
"We don't need a way out. Better they focus on us than people trying to get to safety. Even better if we can send every last one of these monsters back to where they came from. Back on the island, our goal was to run away, to escape, and that's what we did. But now we all have what we need to never run away again. So let them surround us with their darkness. It will give us a chance to see just how brightly our light can shine."She didn't quite understand what had gotten into her, she wasn't talking like she used to, she didn't feel so helpless and lost, not with what she now knew about herself. And though her memories were still a haze, she felt a sense of duty to the title she held. Somehow, she pulled the words from her heart, as if for just a moment, she remembered who she was, and where she came from.
Holding up her staff, she spoke to everyone present.
"As Princess of Camelot..." Whatever that truly meant...
"...I make this declaration here and now, that no amount of darkness will find victory, so long as those who stand against it hold Light in their hearts." And with that said, she brought her staff down, hitting it on the ground and causing a blast of light to echo out in a ring that radiated all around, reaching the edges of the Heartless swarm. All her allies present would feel rejuvenated, as she cast Medica. It wasn't the most powerful healing spell imaginable, but anyone who was suffering from fatigue either due to having already been fighting, or those who hadn't gotten a chance to properly rest since the Island, everybody would feel themselves given a second wind of strength to start this fight anew, as a team.
Truth be told, other than casting elemental spells of questionable strength, this was the best she could do, was to keep everyone alive.
Had she been more honest, Hoshi would have confessed to being spent on combat. Even the presence of allies on all sides couldn’t overcome that she was sleep-deprived and sore; if anything, rejoining Lucian and Levi had eased her closer to wanting the proper rest she needed. But with Heartless all over, and their exits from the plaza sanctioned off, running and hiding was out of the question.
As her friends splintered off, she managed to pull some Shadows in her directions. Even without any magic assisting her she was quick and nimble; evasion into 1-on-1 tactics prevailed, and she slew all but one before Morgan’s voice called out.
Hoshi’s body was released of tension as the wave of healing passed warmly through her. She might have still been tired. But for now she didn’t feel it. She smirked at the Shadow in front of her, dug her left foot against the stone and sprung forward, swinging a backhanded Keyblade through the Heartless. Her foot work had placed her near Morgan.
“Thanks for the pick-me-up.” She held a defensive stance to keep Morgan guarded while she worked from a distance.
As the magic washed over him, Levi smirked and gently cracked his neck as the heartless resumed their advance.
“Come on, then! You want me? I’m right here!” He shouted, striking his bat and keyblade together with a
clang and a spray of sparks as he made a grinding advance into the thinning swarm.
True Light’s Flight cut through heartless after heartless, as he did his best to pull them in, to draw their attention onto him. The more heartless paying attention to and swarming around him, the less pressure it’d be for the others. Besides, if they were all in one place, the others would barely have to aim.
“Aero!” He exclaimed with a flick of his keyblade, using it to pull in a couple of shadows who’d started to wander out of the little herd he was forming, and a pair of downward swings from his bat introduced them to the concrete.
Almost, almost. Levi kept up his pressure, until finally he’d made the window.
“Got ‘em all set up! Knock ‘em down!” He called out to the others, as he leapt straight up, and with another
“Aero!” he instead used it to push himself away from the swarm, leaving a large clump of heartless, prime for the taking.
Goofy was rather impressed with this group of kids. Upon watching them you'd think they were training for this moment their entire lives. He admired their steeled determination to defeat these Heartless, whether to save their own lives or the lives of this town mattered not. They were the light pushing back against the darkness and he'd be honored to support them.
“Thank youuu!” Goofy yelped as he jumped off the back of Max's skateboard landing in the center of the swarm.
Max turned around in surprise and concern when he felt his dad abandon his board.
“Dad!” He yelled as he planted his foot in the ground to stop his momentum.
Goofy held his shield firmly as the swarm started to enclose him. He extended the arm that held his shield and started to spin so fast that his body started to blur and wind picked up around him. As he spun the shield connected with each of the heartless, causing them to disappear one by one. Once he no longer felt his shield connecting with anything Goofy brought himself to an abrupt stop which left him dizzy with stars circling his head as he wobbled around to gather himself.
He unfortunately didn't have long to rest because the heartless were only a warm up to the big show. Large pieces of an armored body fell from the sky, except there was no body in this armor. It didn't have arms or legs, just an armored torso, feet, hands, and head. The pieces didn't even connect. They floated around and seemingly had their own minds. To prove this point the disconnected left foot stepped out, pulled back, and punted Goofy into the nearby fountain.
“Dad!” Max yelled before skating over to check on his father.
Morgan watched as the giant suit of armor dropped down, unlike any armor she had ever seen... and she knew it was going to be a lot different than the other Heartless. Not just from the way a large number of them backed away, creating an arena for this new arrival to fight in, but in the energy it had radiating from it.
"This one is different, I'm guessing it's their leader, if Heartless can have such a thing. I'm sure I have something for this..." She had to think for a moment, before closing her eyes. After a few moments of silence, she opened one eye, and a few magical rings appeared in front of it, as she used a spell to scan the armor. Whether due to the fact she didn't fully know how to utilize this spell, or due to the very thing the spell told her, she was barely able to get much information. But what she was able to gather...
"That's not just one big Heartless, it's a group of them acting as one. Each part of it, the legs, the arms, the body, are all their own individual Heartless. And... the body is extremely magic resistant." That didn't give her much of a plan, knowing only those two things about it... but she came up with something anyway, assuming the others would listen.
"Destroy its limbs, break it down to just its core so that we only have one foe to deal with, and then its magical defense will not matter against every weapon we can bring to bare against it." Holding up her staff, she said
"I will not allow it to harm you... or at least, I will ensure anything it does is temporary."Hoshi held close to Morgan’s side as she surveyed the new foe. How she had gleaned insight on it so quickly was, frankly, beyond Hoshi’s grasp, other than more magic. A brief observation proved her assessment demonstrably accurate. The suit of armour’s arms, legs, and torso all seemed to move in their own ways, the limbs drifting away from its body in a way that dogs might run their leash; separate, yet connected.
“Even if it’s multiple Heartless, we have an advantage in numbers!” Hoshi pointed out.
“I say we press that edge. Let’s get the pieces isolated from each other and team up on them!” She held for a second longer and then, deciding Morgan could fend for herself (and that she, Hoshi, was worth more in the fray of battle), rushed in directing a blow towards one of the arms. If it worked out as Hoshi planned, the arms would target her.
Resting the flat of his keyblade on his shoulder for a moment, Levi looked it over, his eyes darting from one piece to the next, noting the slight differences as he did. His view of their status wasn’t nearly as clear as Morgan’s, but the ability to see how much each appendage would take still tipped him off that the head and torso were, in some way, connected. Watching Hoshi rush for it’s gauntlets, he decided that wasn’t a bad idea, and ran along the side of the plaza, before throwing his keyblade at the sabatons.
“C’mon, scrap heap! Come and get me!” He taunted, as he continued his wide berth, and caught his keyblade as it spun back towards himself.
As Hoshi drew the arms’ attention and Levi targeted the legs, Lucian angled himself toward the floating helmet. If it was truly acting as its own unit, they needed to strike it from multiple sides, forcing it to split its focus.
“Let’s see how you like this!” he shouted, leaping upward. His Keyblade gleamed as he focused his magic,
“Blizzard!”, and slammed his weapon down with an ice infused strike aimed at the helmet.
“We’ll break it down one part at a time!” He exclaimed as he descended upon the armor.
Their quick thinking and coordination was impressive and admirable. Their connection and time together on the island was evident in the way they acted in cohesion without hesitation. They still didn't come close to the togetherness of the Guard Armor. While separate entities they come and work together as one.
As the keyblade trio leaped into action the Guard Armor was ready for them. It spun its gauntlets around, seemingly copying Goofy's Tornado Spin from earlier, picking up wind as it did so, but it didn't stop there. On top of spinning around the gauntlets swung up and down like a twisted windmill to protect its feet and head from the incoming attacks.
Levi's keyblade rebounded off one of the gauntlets and returned back to sender while Hoshi and Lucian were sent flying back in retaliation.
Donald then responded before anyone could act or get back on their feet. He aimed his mage's staff at the chaotic armored heartless in front of them and yelled,
“Stop!” He seemed to be surrounded by a see-through emerald gem with Roman Numerals encircling the center before it and the numbers disappeared. As soon as they did, the Guard Armor's assembled parts were stopped in their tracks.
“Won't hold long!” He said through a strained beak. He was keeping the heartless frozen in time so the others could attack, but since he was targeting multiple big Heartless he wasn't able to hold it as long as he could.
Goofy nodded and launched his shield at the floating helmet. The helmet didn't move, but damage was done. When his shield rebounded to him he turned to see if Maxie had noticed how cool he was. Instead he saw his son charging towards the Guard Armor's torso ready to impale it with his lance.
Max's hit connected but he wasn't sure if it did anything, but he decided not to stay in the line of fire and ran over to guard Morgan just in case the Guard Armor responded to this onslaught with unrighteous fury.
Morgan all the while wished she could do more, but barely knowing how to control her magic, there was little she could do against something that itself was resistant to magic. Sure, Donald’s spell was holding, at least for the moment, but the Heartless was readying itself to break free, and things would only get worse from there.
Supposedly, she came from a Kingdom of Knights, so one would imagine she would have some idea as to their weakness. But with her memory loss, she had no idea what that might be. She thought it would be magic, but that was the exact opposite for this thing. And so, she raised her staff, and said
“Hold it just a bit longer…” and, figuring the same thought Max had, that the Heartless wouldn’t be happy when it broke free from the spell holding it in place, she thought to prepare for that.
She closed her eyes, and tried to think, tried to find the information locked away in her head, to find a spell to help. She was sure there was one, it was magic, there had to be magic for every situation right? Surely that was the key to being a successful mage, knowing what spell to use at what time…
There was no telling how, but she managed to pull a spell from memory without even seeming to actually remember it. She spoke the spell aloud, with a sudden
“Asylum!” and a large dome of light appeared covering everyone present. Everyone would feel their energy returning ever so slightly, but the main effect of the spell was everybody within the dome had a barrier of light around them. It wouldn’t fully protect them, but if anyone was struck, it would lessen the blow at the very least.
And then, she figured she may as well do something other than protecting everyone, and so she cast another spell from muscle memory. True, the Guard Armor was resistant to magic… but it was hard to be resistant to the spell she was casting now, which hurled a large boulder right at the thing’s center mass. The spell was rightly named, simply, Stone.
Levi caught his keyblade as it spun back to him, though his eyes widened slightly as Lucian and Hoshi flew back, then returned to the now-frozen guard armor with a look of rage. He charged the thing, taking out his frustrations on one of the gauntlets, while steering clear of the main torso. Mainly because that's where the others had been directing their attention.
Lucian groaned as he pushed himself up off the cobblestones, wincing slightly from the hit. Then he watched as Donald cast a spell to stop the armor in time. That was impressive. Maybe one day he could do something nearly as impressive. For now, Lucian ran forward to strike at its helmet.
Hoshi’s Keyblade barely connected with the Guard Armor; she might have grazed it with her strike, but the Gauntlets had gotten in the better shot. She was struck back and flung a distance back, nearly knocking her back against the plaza wall in the process.
“Well all the good that idea worked,” she spat out loudly. She righted herself back up, and tried to devise a different approach when the duck wizard cast his spell over the suit of armor. Encased in the green light, the enemy was held firm as though frozen in time, a set of numbers steadily disappearing like a countdown.
Hoshi kicked off from the wall, drawing her Keyblade once more. As the rejuvenating wave from Morgan filled her, she found an extra burst of speed with which to close in on the armor. She slashed and hacked away at the foe’s legs in a short series of quick moves before retreating her ground as the timer on the wizard’s spell reached its end.
The Guard Armor broke free from its time prison, shattering the spell in frustration and anger. But this burst of fury was nothing but a puff of smoke as the legs of the giant knight buckled before dispersing into hearts that scattered, trying to return home. But that wasn't it. The combined attacks to the helmet knocked it from its place. It clattered to the ground behind the armor.
It tried to struggle back aloft its mighty throne, but before it could muster the strength Max was already zipping to it with his skateboard, realizing it wasn't completely finished. He impaled the helmet with his lance, thinking it'd be enough to finish the monstrosity as a whole but he was sorely mistaken. The helmet dissipated just like the feet, but he was smacked aside in retaliation by the one remaining gauntlet.
The Armor proved just how autonomous each of its parts were. It didn't need a head or feet or both arms to fight. It wasn't over until it was over.
“Maxie!” Goofy yelled as he ran towards his son and dodged a swinging fist in the process.
Donald lifted his staff and cast
“Cure!” on his nephew and turned to the armor with a look of rage.
Daisy, feeling responsible for her nephew, stepped forward to aim her staff at the gauntlet that dared to smack him, casting,
“Blizzard!” on it, freezing the gauntlet in place for the young keyblade wielders to finish it off. Despite her anger she remembered that this was still training for them.
Feeling rather vindicated now that at least one of the gauntlets had bitten the dust, Levi took a moment to reassess as he looked over the last two remaining pieces. The others had done good work in taking out the thing’s head and heels, he looked over the state of the last two pieces, and assuming the last gauntlet would be a greater threat than the torso, he opted to deal with that.
Taking advantage of the opportunity provided, and trusting his friends to finish the torso off, Levi sprinted towards the last remaining hand, hoping to finish it before it thawed out. After a couple of steps, both of his feet planted on the concrete on instinct, as he kept moving forward, even speeding up to his surprise and silver light trailed along the ground behind his feet. As he closed, he swung downwards onto the thing, with his keyblade and bat together, driving with all the force he could muster as something flashed into his mind, just as it had with the Strike Raid.
Sliding Dash.
All the while Morgan kept up a steady release of healing, hoping to keep everyone from harm entirely if she could, though that wasn’t entirely working. What she didn’t realize was she was exhausting herself, as she had absolutely no idea what ‘mana’ was or what kinds of limits her body had for casting magic. And so she kept casting, trying to help anyone she could, and launching boulders at the last remaining piece of the enemy, eventually sliding down onto one knee, panting as she felt like she had just run a marathon, and her head started to sting.
Lucian saw Morgan drop to a knee from the corner of his eye, and that did it. He wasn’t going to let anyone else get hurt. Not his friends, not the people who had come to protect him, and definitely not the girl who just shielded all of them with her magic until she was ready to collapse.
Lucian took a breath. He only knew one spell, and he didn’t know any fancy techniques with names. But he knew what he had to do. With a shout, he charged, Lucian leapt high, Keyblade overhead, and brought it crashing down on the torso with everything he had.
The combined effort of Daisy, Levi, Morgan, and Lucian delivered the final blow to the Guard Armor. The torso and final gauntlet followed the other pieces in defeat, returning the lost hearts. They were able to save themselves and the poor, unfortunate souls lost to the darkness.
Max woke up groggily to see his father checking on him. Despite feeling the hit earlier he now felt completely fine as if someone had healed whatever injury he had.
“Did anyone else hear a bell ringing, or was it just me? And is Lady Morgan okay?”Goofy was excited to see that Max was okay and gave him a tight squeeze of a hug. When he saw Max’s face turning red he let him go. He nodded to confirm his question.
“You got knocked in the noggin, but not that hard. We heard it too. And she’s okay, just used up too much mana.”While Max was getting up on his feet, Daisy ran over to Morgan to help her up. She pulled out a blue cube from one of her pockets and squeezed it over the mage princess’s head, sprinkling her with the energy from within it. Morgan would instantly feel her energy and mana restore as if she wasn’t just on the brink of collapse.
“I’m going to have to teach you how not to overexert yourself, sweetie.”
